Akshay Technology Blog on Seo, Cloud Computing

Thursday, April 22, 2010

It can be described as the use of social media such as networks, communities, blogs, wikis or other collaborative media for marketing.
It can also be used for better public relations, customer service and even sales.
Some of the sites used for Social Marketing include Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr etc.
In the context of internet marketing, Social Media can be described as sites that support collaboration. The collaboration can vary from users being able to post comments as in blogs or even edit content as in Wikipedia.
It is also known as Web 2.0.
In these Sites the content is mainly published by users, not by the employees of the Site or the company. Eg YouTube

Web 1.0

This includes traditional websites which do not allow any participation of the users.
The users can only read articles and unlike Web 2.0 have no or very little control.
Despite the potential benefits of Web 2.0 most of the websites are still Web 1.0

The Important aspects of Social media marketing

1 Creating buzz using different media or channels (Viral Marketing)

2 Allow participation and control of the Users

3 Role of organization to regulate rather than direct

Types of Social Marketing

The simplest and most commonly used method is advertising directly on Social Media Sites like Facebook.
The other method is a company itself adopting Web 2.0 and making its sites complaint to Web 2.0 standards.
Channels of Social Media Marketing include:-

Collaborative sites like blogs and discussion forums.

Real-time social channels like Twitter and Facebook.

Location-based services like Tumblr, Jaiku etc.

Review-driven services like Yelp, etc.

Social media optimization
Social Media Optimization is a method of website optimization using Social Media; the other method is Traditional search engine optimization.
There are two categories of SMO methods:
(a) Social media features added to the content itself, including: RSS feeds, sharing buttons, user rating and polling tools etc.
(b) Promotional activities by using blogs, commenting on other blogs, participating in discussion groups, and posting updates on social networking sites etc
Social media optimization is related to search engine optimization but primarily the focus is on driving traffic from sources other than search engines, though improved search ranking is also a benefit of successful SMO and the long term objective of using SMO.
Social media optimization is creating word of mouth publicity by networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites.
In also includes blogs, blog search engines, RSS Search Engines including Yahoo RSS, Bloglines, Newsgator and Google Reader etc.

A popular site on Social Media http://www.searchenginejournal.com/ has tried to frame the rules of Social Media Optimization
1. Increase your linkability
2. Make tagging and bookmarking easy
3. Reward inbound links
4. Help your content travel (RSS etc)
5. Encourage the mashup (Let others use your content to produce something some thing different)
6. Be a User Resource like adding value and outbound links even if it doesn’t help in the short term
7. Reward helpful and valuable users like greater visibility
8. Participate (Get involved in the discussions going on among the blogs and sites of others as well as using the likes of DIGG)
9. Know how to target your audience
10. Create content
11. Be real and transparent12. Don’t forget your roots, be humble (replying to comments etc).13. Don’t be afraid to try new things, stay fresh

Relevance of Social Media Marketing to India’s growing corporate social media marketing adoption

The growth of Web 2.0 and Social Media has been phenomenal and it has emerged from almost nowhere to occupy a very important part in not just Search Engine Optimization, in deciding the rank of websites on Search Engines but also in the lives of People.

As it is known to each and every marketer that the Internet is truly global and this makes it almost impossible for India to remain insulated from Social Media.

Despite low awareness among people and businesses about the terms like Web 2.0, the growth of sites like Twitter and Facebook etc in India has been phenomenal and low awareness about sites like Digg don’t reduce their importance in deciding or influencing the Search Results.

There is lack of awareness among businesses in India about the terms like Social Media Optimization but many companies are spending on Search Engine Marketing of which spending on Social Sites is quite significant.

The bigger problem is about adoption of Web 2.0 and moving beyond the use of just Twitter or Facebook in Social Media Optimization

Most of the Search Engine Optimization in India is still limited to Link Building and directory submission. This problem is further compounded by unwillingness of SEO Companies to adopt Web 2.0.

But with rise in number of people Blogging, participating in Social Media Sites and using new Web 2.0 services along with increase in number Freelance Bloggers and SEO Experts is expected to change the things.

Also the importance of Web 2.0 and Social Media continues to increase at a rapid pace and its only a matter of time before the businesses and SEO Experts in India understand the importance of these new channels and also about the diminishing role of the traditional SEO techniques in deciding the ranking on Search Engines and in getting high page views.

In addition to these changes, the increasing use of Social Media and Web 2.0 in India by foreign companies is expected to force Indian Companies to bring about changes in their Online Marketing Plans.

One of the best examples of this change is IPL showing live matches on YouTube in order to counter the increasing number of Video Sharing Sites and Indian Blog Networks like Humsurfer showing live and recorded matches and causing revenue losses which may run into several millions every year

Friday, April 16, 2010

Search Engine Optimization has traditionally been defined as improving a websites rank on the Search Engines.

In recent years the emergence of Web 2.0 has led to significant changes in how a Website / Blog are ranked on the Search Engines.

Also it has no longer remained necessary for a website to rank high on Search Engines to get very high Page Views – a Website ranked high on a Social Media like Digg can get very high Page Views.

How to promote a Website using SEO

Content

Quality

Keywords

Themed sites

Headings and Subheadings

Length of Posts

Use of Videos and Photos etc

Comments / Collaboration

Avoid Duplicate content

Links

External Links from other Websites/Blogs

Links from Blog Networks, Social Bookmarking, Microblogs etc

Links from Social Networking sites like Facebook and Twitter

Internal Links

Cross Links

Outbound Links

Directories and Forums

Other factors include

Updates

Load Time of Website

Use of Technology like Pinging

RSS Feeds

Any Website, Blog or even Directories, Forums can be promoted using a combination of these strategies and it is not necessary to use all these strategies.

For Example a site such as YouTube does not have much content in form of articles and is very slow bulky site but still ranks very high as it is updated continuously.

Similarly I focus on getting Links from Blog Networks for improving rank of a blog/website.

Saviance Technology and Viburnix

Case of Birla Institute of Management and Technology

The website of BIMTEC (Alumni Section) has a good layout, lot of internal links, good quality content and also supports collaboration, user participation and content generation by them.

But a websites rank also depends on External Links.

The most important factors for deciding the Rank of a website are the Keywords and the External Links.

Keywords must be used in Headings and it’s not necessary to have articles etc as in the case of Video and Photo sharing sites.

The promotion of a website is similar to Push Marketing and External Links have to be created and this is done by every Webmaster and Blogger irrespective of what they say.

The most effective way of creating these links is by using Web 2.0 like Blog Networks (Eg Digg). There is a misconception among many people who think using Facebook, Twitter etc is sufficient for their Web 2.0 strategy and ignore the more effective means like Blog Networks and Social Bookmarking.

These sites are meant for SEO unlike Facebook which is for making friends.

These sites not only provide direct links and users but also help in improving the rank of the website on Goggle and other search engines.

The algorithms and rules for using these sites are much more complex than promoting a site on Google and are not even published anywhere.

Non compliance of these rules results in the account being blocked or poor ranking.

I have learned about SEO using Web 2.0 by adopting hit and trial method over a long time period.

The biggest problem with Blog Networks is that they don’t allow a user to promote his content.

It is a general term for Services, Software, and Applications etc that may involve delivery of hosted services over the Internet or even Intranet.

It should be flexible and simple and quickly deployable, and at the same time being highly scalable and cost-effective.

It is a new and still evolving concept but it is leading to a general shift towards next generation data centers hosted by large infrastructure companies such as Amazon, Google, etc.

The biggest advantage is that users need not have expertise over the technology and may use cloud computing for reducing upfront capital cost and/or for simplifying their job.

Cloud Computing is one of the fastest growing segments of software services. The sector has emerged as an important part of software services over the last few years.

Cloud Applications generally use large data centers that host Web Applications and Web services. Anyone with a suitable Internet connection and a standard browser can access a cloud application.

Cloud computing helps in minimizing the level of detailed interaction with the underlying technology stack i.e. it does all this in a way that minimizes the interaction with the underlying layers of the technology stack.

Cloud computing is more of a process than one set technology and accessed over a network.

These services are broadly divided into three categories: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and other recent technologies that rely on the Internet to satisfy the computing needs of users.

The platform supports a variety of software including the traditional Java and Linux, Apache,

MySQL, PHP (LAMP) stack based applications as well as new architectures such as MapReduce.

The market is expected to reach $150.1 billion in 2013.

According to IDC “Cloud computing is a broad and diverse phenomenon. Much of the growth represents a transfer of traditional IT services to the new cloud model, but there is also scope for creation of substantial new businesses and revenue streams.

The Curtains are down and Google has launched much hyped Next Generation Mobile Device – The Nexus One also known as Google Phone.

Many Websites and Blogs have started putting Pictures of Nexus One and even on Twitter.

Cory O’Brien, a San Francisco-based blogger, was one of the first to release pictures of Nexus One on twitter. He also notes at, “Google Phone = iPhone + a little extra screen and a scroll wheel. Great touch screen, and Android.”

The Google Phone is believed to have much better features as compared to IPhone and it comes unlocked.

Some people argue it to be quite similar to HTC Passion but I think its much better.